Paragon Worldwide Take Inspiration from Controversial Psychologist

News provided by Paragon Acquisitions on Wednesday 15th Jun 2016

Whilst many are able to list attributes they believe contributes to success, very few take action and commit to entrepreneurship

In a recent meeting with young sales and marketing professionals, Paragon Worldwide looked at the work of controversial Psychologist John Watson in order to highlight how almost everything needed for success can be learnt.

Finding success as an entrepreneur has become something of a phenomenon. Whilst many people are able to list the attributes they believe contributes to success, very few are able to take action and fully commit to entrepreneurship. To truly thrive in a business setting, people need to not only possess positive habits such as a strong work ethic, the ability to plan their time effectively, focus and self-discipline – they also need to present a core set of behaviours, which are ingrained deeply in their mind-set and influence their every action. These behaviours, such as being able to take risks and view things from new and intriguing perspectives are often thought to be the product of nature, rather than nurture, meaning that people who don’t exhibit these tendencies wrongly believe that they will not succeed as an entrepreneur.

Paragon Worldwide, a leading provider of outsourced sales and marketing solutions greatly disagree with this common belief, and have been working hard to disprove this myth amongst their independent contractors. The firm recently turned to the work of controversial psychologist John Watson to showcase how even the most innate and natural behaviours can be learnt with the right conditioning, focus and desire.

To highlight that behaviours of all types can be the result of learning and environment, Paragon Worldwide looked at Watson’s most famous and most controversial study of ‘Little Albert’. The 1920’s study was conducted to investigate how behaviours can be learnt through conditioning and saw Watson expose a 9-month-old boy to a white rat. Every time the rat was presented to the boy Watson would clang an iron rod to scare the child. Over time the boy learnt to be scared of the rat, even without the accompanying loud noise – therefore proving that even the most natural behaviours can be learnt through environmental factors and repetition.

Whilst the study still remains a hot topic in psychology circles due to its questionable ethics, Paragon Worldwide believes that Watson’s work highlights some important lessons for those who feel they don’t have what it takes to succeed in business. Just like Little Albert and the rat, professionals need to spend time repeating certain behaviours and exposing themselves to certain environments if they are to develop the behaviours of success. This means that, if a person wants to become more comfortable with taking risks, they need to make a daily effort to leave their comfort zone and experience something new every day. Over time, this will condition their mind to be more accepting of risk and to seek out new opportunities within their environment.

Following this study, Paragon Worldwide conducted further research into conditioning behaviour and discovered the “Pavlov’s Dogs” theory, which was developed by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov in the 1890s. During his experiment, Pavlov tested a type of learned behaviour using operant conditioning that re-affirmed positive habits and behaviours, such as a dog associating a bell with food, and then over time the bell being used to create salivation without the food. Paragon Acquisitions further promotes this as another great example of how great habits can be formed over time through repetition and effort.

Based in Cork, Paragon Worldwide are specialists in outsourced sales and marketing solutions, and help brands throughout Ireland form stronger connections with their target audience through dedicated, one-on-one communication.